rand, climbs over the low paſſage-door, opens it within, and creeps ſoftly, under the pangs of a guilty conſcience, to the goat-houſe, for he was apprehenſive his wife would catch him as he was executing his felonious deſign. Contrary to cuſtom, he found the goat-houſe door wide open, a circumſtance which agreeably diſappointed him, for he diſcovered in this neglect ſome pretence to varniſh his own undertaking. But in the goat-houſe all was void and empty, he could not grope out any thing that had the breath of life in its noſtrils, neither goat nor kid. In his firſt alarm, he conceived that he had been anticipated by a more dexterous thief, for misfortunes, he remembered, ſeldom come ſingle. He ſunk down diſpirited upon the ſtraw, and gave himſelf entirely up to ſullen ſorrow, on the failure of this laudable attempt to ſet on foot his trade again.
Jane on her return from the prieſt had induſtriouſly put her houſe in readineſs to receive her huſband with a ſavoury meal,
